When I Run the DMV, Things Will Be Different
I bought my new car (new to me, anyway) back in September. One of the forms I filled out at the dealership was the one that lets them apply directly to the DMV for new plates, to be sent directly to me at home. Although you realize its one of those futile procedures at the time ó because something like that never, ever works the first time ó you fill out the forms and smile and nod.
Cut to January, four months later. No plates. The only word in the interim has been a check in November from the dealership for about a hundred bucks that I assumed was some kind of partial license fee refund. (The dealership collects enough to cover the whole annual registration, but there's almost always only a part of the year that's due at the time the title is transferred.)
So I call the dealership, deliver the polite version of "WTF," and she collects a bunch of my information so she can submit the forms again. Then, right before she hangs up, she asks, "Your mailbox is big enough for the plates to fit, right?" No, not remotely.
Apparently what happens is this: The post office is prohibited from leaving license plates anywhere but inside your physical mailbox. If they won't fit in your mailbox, they send them back to the DMV. Without notifying you that they attempted delivery, naturally. And when the DMV gets the plates back, they don't notify you, either.
The woman at the dealership, upon determining that I am a AAA member, suggested I just head to the local AAA office and get my plates there, in person. I got them this morning, easy as can be.
It pisses me off that I have to pay extra (in the form of AAA dues) in order to get the bare minimum level of service ó the delivery of new license platesÝó from the state. It torques me even more that this is exactly the kind of anecdote that's always used to argue for the privatization scheme of the week. I'm reeeaally skeptical of the privatization argument, because I find it difficult to believe that it will generally be less expensive to provide a service while making a profit (via private business) than it will be to provide that service without making a profit (via government). And I find it even more difficult to believe that for-profit companies will have the public welfare as strongly in mind as a government agency.
But maybe I'm just wrong.
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